My great great grandparents were buried near Franklin Square and the cemetery there was closed and the bodies placed in a mass grave at W Laurel Hill. When I think about the beautiful markers sometimes erected and the peaceful settings and that even today people make a great fuss over burial sites one need only look at these to see that despite the "Rock of Ages" suggestion that memorial stones will last through eternity we know that in the US the Almighty Dollar decides what remains or not.

September 11, 1915,
MAYOR'S SPADE TO START GREAT SUBWAY,
MARKING CITY'S PROGRESSWe Are Making History,"Cries Blanikenburg to Huge Crowd
at Ceremony.With this potent sentence Mayor Blanikenburg
Surrounded by his cabinet, by members of both branches of counsel, and by thousands of citizens assembled on City Hall plaza the Mayor broke ground for the first section of the Broad street subway.

Graveyard - 3rd and Brown - Public Ledger 2 June 1917
Phillyxpat is there more to this story, wonder if the location that the Public Ledger is giving right, as the only graveyard at 3rd and brown was at the southeast corner, and that was before this date. The Mifflin School that was at 808 n. 3rd street just north of Brown st. old maps shows no empty area which may have been a small graveyard.

Phillyxpat is there more to this story, wonder if the location that the Public Ledger is giving right, as the only graveyard at 3rd and brown was at the southeast corner, and that was before this date. The Mifflin School that was at 808 n. 3rd street just north of Brown st. old maps shows no empty area which may have been a small graveyard.

i have a list of old cemeteries if it helps
Department of Public Safety
Bureau of Health
Room No. 610
City Hall, Philadelphia

April 26th, 1898
RESOLVED, That the burial of more than one body in a grave in the thickly inhabited and built-up portions of the city is hereby declared a nuisance having a tendency to be prejudicial to public health.
RESOLVED, That in the thickly inhabited and built-up portions of the city the burial of more than one body in a single grave, or the opening of a grave in which a body has been buried, for the purpose of additional interment, be and the same is hereby prohibited on and after June 1st, 1898.

Department of Public SafetyBureau of HealthRoom No. 610City Hall, Philadelphia April 26th, 1898RESOLVED, That the burial of more than one body in a grave in the thickly inhabited and built-up portions of the city is hereby declared a nuisance having a tendency to be prejudicial to public health.RESOLVED, That in the thickly inhabited and built-up portions of the city the burial of more than one body in a single grave, or the opening of a grave in which a body has been buried, for the purpose of additional interment, be and the same is hereby prohibited on and after June 1st, 1898. RESOLVED, That the following cemeteries or burial grounds be and are hereby subject to the above orders (all sic):

4. Mother African Zoar Methodist Episcopal Church (1796–1885) Location: north side of Brown Street west of 4th; 409 Brown Street (approximate) The church asked permission from the Board of Health to relocate 100 burials from the churchyard to Olive Cemetery in 1884; however, this relocation did not go as planned (Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 12, 1884). In March 1886, local newspapers reported the following story: The police of the Twenty-fourth district yesterday discovered a large number of human bones in a pit on Richmond street, near Clearfield. It was learned that the bones were being brought from the churchyard of Zoar African M.E. Church, on Brown street, near Fourth, where the bodies were being removed to another locality. Orders were issued forbidding any more bones being deposited in the pit, which was covered up with dirt [Philadelphia Inquirer, March 27, 1886]. The current status of the remains deposited along Richmond Street is unknown. It is presumed that at least some of the remains from the Zoar cemetery on Brown Street were relocated to Olive Cemetery in or about 1886. Burials in Olive were relocated to Eden Cemetery in 1923 (Keels 2003)

Phillyxpat is there more to this story, wonder if the location that the Public Ledger is giving right, as the only graveyard at 3rd and brown was at the southeast corner, and that was before this date. The Mifflin School that was at 808 n. 3rd street just north of Brown st. old maps shows no empty area which may have been a small graveyard.

Click to expand...

Lots of data from CHIOSSO here too. I am thinking if this is not resolved already, that the cemetery seems to have a fence facing a street, that maybe the photo negative could have been reversed and as such the image could be a cemetery St. John. P.E. Church half a block away at American St. and Brown. With the photo crew approximating incorrectly one street passed Second as Third?

Lots of data from CHIOSSO here too. I am thinking if this is not resolved already, that the cemetery seems to have a fence facing a street, that maybe the photo negative could have been reversed and as such the image could be a cemetery St. John. P.E. Church half a block away at American St. and Brown. With the photo crew approximating incorrectly one street passed Second as Third?

Lots of data from CHIOSSO here too. I am thinking if this is not resolved already, that the cemetery seems to have a fence facing a street, that maybe the photo negative could have been reversed and as such the image could be a cemetery St. John. P.E. Church half a block away at American St. and Brown. With the photo crew approximating incorrectly one street passed Second as Third?

Evening public ledger. June 02, 1917,
this is a view if the parking lot of the church on american the windows match,the fence matches, and im not sure but it looks like the tree matches. it looks like it was taken from the from the church. When I was looking for this I found some great news stories about the church and the Rev. George Chalmers Richmond, who was either crazy, a bolshevik or just a trouble maker.

C. - Good find on the cemetery story same day as the picture on the back page. Don't read as much as I used to and like the visuals more I guess. Glad you unearthed the ghost of Rev.Richmond. A lot of Philly stories lost along the way and worth finding.